Chapter 8
“What did you say to make Owen leave like that?” Mr. Fritz asked Temperance shortly after Owen left.
“Nothing. Only that we wanted to help Mavis.” She had been equally surprised and disappointed by Owen’s abrupt departure. “You don’t think Mr. Stames and Mavis?—”
“No.” Mr. Fritz said bluntly. He paused a minute, then shook his head. “No. I opened in May. She turned up a few weeks later, saying she’d just arrived. Owen gets around, but he didn’t get there. Not for that, anyway.”
Temperance flinched, disturbed by pretty much every one of those statements, but especially that Owen ‘got around.’
She hated to think about him in that way when she had been looking forward to seeing him again. For business, she reminded herself. She was hoping she could persuade him to hire her for the report her father would have written. It was very slim odds that he would agree, but she had to try. It was her only means of raising enough money to travel home before the roads were obliterated by snow and the temperatures cold enough to freeze a mule in its stride.
If she had to stay here and work for the cost of a stage ticket, she would be here for years. Mr. Fritz had begrudgingly allowed her to work in Mavis’s stead and stay in the room with the other two women, but she was on a thin tick on the floor which she rolled up every morning when she rose. Between buying that, and rent and food, she was back to zero and still owed Mrs. Pincher.
“Where’s my kiss?” A drunken gambler demanded.
Temperance distractedly blew a kiss at the cards he’d been dealt, barely looking because Owen had returned. Something in his demeanor was so serious, she sobered in response, instantly alert.
Jane happened to be at the bar. Owen leaned close to say something in her ear that made Jane clasp her hands and smile at him so big, a searing jolt of jealousy ran through Temperance’s blood.
She mentally recoiled. Where had that reaction come from? She gave herself a small shake and smiled down at the men who were anteing up. She absolutely, positively refused to look up and see what Owen and Jane were doing. It was none of her business.
Maybe she would caution Jane later, though. Owen gets around.
Her willpower lasted all of seven minutes, long enough for the gambler’s stake to be lost.
“Shall I fetch you another drink as consolation?” she asked him.
He handed her a coin and she finally allowed herself to look for Owen. He was gone again.
She might have asked Jane what Owen had said to her, but Jane was being tortured by a miner who asked her to dance for the third time in a row. There was no piano here, only an intoxicated man with a squeezebox he played with more enthusiasm than skill.
Nearly two hours later, Mr. Fritz finally shut down for the night. At least Temperance had paid off her bedding with tonight’s wages. After Mr. Fritz deducted her rent, he still owed her forty-five cents.
They heard Freddie crying as they approached the door to their room.
“Oh,” Temperance said with a pang of sympathy.
“I’m glad she’s up. Wait until you hear,” Jane said with subdued excitement.
They entered the tiny room to find Mavis pacing with the baby. She was crying as hard as her son.
“Oh, Mavis,” Jane said as she lit a candle. “You don’t have to worry. I have good news. You have a benefactor. He’s going to arrange a ticket on the stage and give you two hundred and fifty dollars to set you up where it’s not such hard life.”
“Oh.” Mavis’s expression fell. She sat on the edge of her bunk. “I know who it is. It doesn’t surprise me that he wants to pay me to leave. I knew he didn’t want us. It was stupid of me to come here.” Fresh tears of anger and helplessness brimmed her eyes.
“Freddie’s father is here?” Temperance asked with shock. “Is that why you came to Denver?”
Mavis nodded jerkily. “He came back to Springfield last Christmas and I thought... I knew his mother didn’t think much of me, but I believed he loved me. He said he did. That’s why I let him...” She bit her lips as she looked down at the baby. “When I realized I was expecting, I came to tell him. At first, he acted happy to see me and wanted to...you know. But he was about to be married. I said I wanted to wait until he’d called it off and married me. Then he said some awful things, claimed Freddie wasn’t his, warned me against naming him as the father. I didn’t know what to do.” Her mouth quivered.
Temperance could imagine all too well that Mavis had wanted to pretend the inevitable wouldn’t happen, yet her baby had arrived all the same.
“Oh, Mavis. I’ve been in your shoes with a faithless man.” Temperance sat next to her on the bunk and rubbed her shoulder. “It’s not your fault for trusting him.” She had to believe that.
“I thought I’d punish him by finding a husband here and living under his nose, making him see his baby being raised by another man, but he doesn’t care, does he?” Mavis asked weepily.
Jane and Temperance exchanged a look, both loathe to say it aloud, even though it seemed to be true.
“Do you still have family at home?” Jane asked.
“In Springfield? My aunt won’t take me in like this.” She nodded at Freddie.
“Call yourself a widow,” Temperance suggested. “We’ll use some of your money to buy you a wedding band.” She pointed at the tip jar. “You can tell your aunt that your gold-fevered husband died on you. Then go to church and pray for his soul. No one will dare question it.”
Jane’s brows went up at the outlandish lie.
Temperance shrugged, already thinking she could use a similar story when she returned to Chicago. Adelaide could spend the rest of her days wondering if it was true.
They slept well enough,but Freddie had them all up early.
After they each ate a boiled egg, Mavis and the baby went back to bed, but the morning was bright enough that Jane suggested she and Temperance walk over to the trading post in search of a ring for Mavis.
They didn’t have any luck, but ran into Owen as they passed the corncake tent on their way home.
Temperance’s heart gave a little skip even as she tried not to watch for any warmth or connection between him and Jane. As she dropped her gaze, she realized Clarence was at his heels.
“How do you still have him?” She blinked in astonishment.
“I told you last night. He won’t stop following me. I have to lock him in my room when I go out at night.”
“You lock him in your room?” she cried. “Why don’t you leave him outside to find his way home?”
“It’s cold.” He frowned his disapproval.
“What is Mrs. Pincher going to think?”
“Are you the hussy who stole Old Lady Pincher’s dog?” Skip, one of the miners who had danced with them last night, was eavesdropping as he stood in line for corncakes. “She was a hen with a bee up her feathers, fluttering all over Denver the other day, calling for him.”
“I am not the hussy who stole her dog. He is. He just admitted it.” Temperance waved at Owen. “I’ll have to take him home,” she told Jane, who was crouched down, scratching the dog’s neck while murmuring endearments.
Clarence was soaking up the attention, thumping his tail against the hard-packed ground.
“Don’t leave yet,” Owen said. “Let me eat my breakfast first.”
“You want to confess it was actually you who stole her dog?” she asked.
“No. But I have to go to the stage office. It was busy when I walked by, so I decided to get breakfast first.” He walked away to order his meal, calling back to her, “Get yourselves some coffee, my treat.”
They did, then Skip joined them to report on the number of men in a recent shootout in a camp called Horsefly. Apparently, fire had engulfed another camp nearby.
“It’s their own fault,” Skip muttered. “Did they think the Arapaho were kidding when they called it Lightning Lake?”
Half an hour later, Jane went home while Temperance headed to the bridge over Cherry Creek with Owen and Clarence.
“Can I ask you why you’re helping Mavis?” she asked tentatively.
“Do I not strike you as a man with a generous heart?” He threw a stick for the dog as they walked, ensuring Clarence kept up with them.
“No,” she choked on a half-laugh. “You strike me as a man who went to warn the father of her baby, which makes me wonder if it’s really Mavis you’re helping or that faithless man.”
Owen turned his head. His good-natured expression was gone, iced over with a thicker frost than the layers still sitting in the mid-morning shadows.
She swallowed back the taste of tar left in the back of her throat from her coffee.
“Forgive my cynicism,” she said stiffly. “I have some experience with a man who lacked character.” It made her feel sick and ashamed to even mention it.
The way he looked at her made her chagrined to accuse him of being anything like Dewey, but how could she know if he possessed a conscience or not?
“If you’re helping Mavis for your own reasons, without expecting anything for it, I’ll simply thank you,” she said stiffly. “I was very concerned for her, and I appreciate that she won’t be destitute and shunned.”
“I know what that’s like,” he said in a hollow voice. “My father left us after my little brother died. He was grieving. I understand that, but it wasn’t my mother’s fault. He left her with nothing except a child she couldn’t feed. I wasn’t old enough to work, not at the kind of job that earns more than a few pennies. She worked in the fields and took in sewing, but we went hungry more often than not.”
His jaw was clenched so hard, she expected to hear his teeth break.
“I’m sorry,” she said sincerely. “You never heard from him again?”
“No. When I was fourteen, she got word he was dead. She remarried and I joined the army soon as I could.”
“I’m sorry, Owen.” She felt small for being skeptical of his motives, but how could she have known it was so personal for him?
“Holding one man to account for abandonment doesn’t change the past, but at least there’ll be one less mother burdened with a hungry child today.”
She nodded, wanting to reach out to him in some way because she could sense the pain coming off him in waves, but Clarence had realized where he was. He dropped his stick and ran up to scratch at the door of Mrs. Pincher’s cottage.
Temperance was tempted to simply run away, since she still didn’t have the rent she owed, but she made herself wait until Mrs. Pincher opened the door.
“Good morning, Mrs. Pincher,” she greeted as cheerfully as she could. “I wanted you to know that I didn’t steal Clarence. He actually followed Mr. Stames the other day. Mr. Stames didn’t know where he belonged, so he’s been looking after him. When I realized what had happened, I brought Clarence straight back to you.”
“Do you have my money?” the old lady asked.
“I have a little. I was wondering, um...” She moved closer, so Owen wouldn’t overhear the embarrassing details of her impoverishment. “If I give you forty cents, would you be willing to give me my things?”
“You can have your things when you pay your debt,” Mrs. Pincher said loudly.
“How much is it?” Owen came forward while reaching into his pocket.
“That’s not necess—” Temperance began.
“Four dollars and forty cents,” Mrs. Pincher told him stiffly.
“Minus the two dollars I already gave you!” Temperance snapped her head around. Did this woman seriously think she could get away with that?
“Let’s make it two dollars and fifty cents,” Owen said. “Since you were troubled over Clarence and had to go looking for him.”
“I wasn’t troubled. I only thought people ought to know she steals dogs as well as skips on rent.” Mrs. Pincher took the money and dropped it into her apron. “I’ll get your things. Then I never want to see you again.”
Temperance didn’t dare suggest coming in to pack up her belongings herself.
She couldn’t bring herself to look at Owen, either, even when he said, “She seems pleasant.”
“I’ll pay you back as soon as I can.” She stared at the shut door, cheeks burning with humiliation.
Inside, there was a murmur of voices, then the door opened. Mrs. Pincher put Clarence out again, then dropped Temperance’s carpet bag on the stoop.
“My new boarders said they’ll pay me through February, but they don’t care for the smell of dog. Keep him.”
“But I don’t?—”
Mrs. Pincher stepped back and shut the door again, leaving the dog wagging and sniffing around their knees.
Temperance looked at Owen. She couldn’t feed herself, let alone an animal.
Owen stared back at her, equally dumbfounded.
“I guess he’s yours, since you gave her that extra ten cents.” It was only fair, right? She turned and hurried away before he could contradict her.
She looked in her bag as she walked, not that she had valuables to worry about. She and her father had had to travel light. Everything seemed to be in order.
“I don’t want a dog,” Owen muttered as he caught up with her. “This is why I’m not married, so I don’t have to worry about anyone but myself.”
Yet he’d been worried that Clarence would be cold at night and was going out of his way for a stranger and her baby.
Don’t, Temperance warned herself. Two acts of nicety didn’t mean he wasn’t the type to lead a woman on and break her heart when it suited him.
For once the boardwalk in front of the stage window was quiet, with only a well-dressed, middle-aged woman speaking through the window to the clerk. A barrel-chested man in a brown suit of good quality stood nearby, holding the leash of a pretty dalmatian.
“Owen.” The man with the dog tipped his hat. He had a neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper beard and the ends of his moustache were pinched to a point.
“Woodrow.” Owen gave a nod of familiarity. “Temperance, have you met Woodrow Greenly? He’s our judge here in town. Although, not for long? Will you be standing for election now we’re becoming the Territory of Jefferson?”
“Until this new territory is recognized by Washington, I remain the appointed probate judge in these parts,” Woodrow said with a cool nod. “I’ll continue to collect my salary and carry out my duties as such.”
“Good to know. This is Miss Temperance Goodrich,” Owen said. “Virgil asked her father to assess our need for a railroad.”
“No assessment necessary. The need is here. We only require investors to make it happen,” Woodrow said gruffly.
“That’s what my father’s report can help with.” Temperance wanted to seize the opportunity to put herself forth, but Woodrow was shifting his attention to the woman who left the window to approach them.
“Please meet my wife, Ivy.”
Ivy Greenly was a buxom woman in a plaid day gown of blue and brown with a smart blue jacket atop it. Her buttons were closed to her throat and the wide pleats in her skirt draped neatly over the modest cage beneath. She wore a simple straw poke bonnet adorned with a pin ribbon that tied under her chin.
“Owen. It’s nice to see you again.” She offered him a smile of. “And...?”
“Miss Temperance Goodrich,” he provided, adding, “Excuse me while I take care of my business.” Owen stepped to the window.
“It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Greenly.” Temperance leaned into her city manners.“I hope we haven’t interrupted your own business?”
“Not at all. It’s lovely to see another woman in town, especially a young one,” Ivy said warmly. “You must drop by sometime to meet my daughter-in-law, Katherine. We’re the brick house on Blake. Did I hear ‘Miss’ Goodrich? You’re not married?” She glanced pointedly at Owen’s back.
“I’m not. I happened to be walking the same direction as Mr. Stames, so we walked together.”
“Owen, does this mean you and your partners are starting a railway company?” Woodrow asked, not letting go of that piece. “You know I want in on that. Elmer will too. He’s at the land office, you know. If we’re getting a railroad, the whole town will explode.”
“My father isn’t actually here yet.” Temperance hurried to clarify and looked to Owen. She shouldn’t have misled him. Now the train was leaving the station and it was very empty. “I’m doing some preliminary work. The actual report is quite some time away.”
Woodrow frowned at that.
“Are you staying in Denver with relatives? Or...?” Ivy’s tone sharpened as she sensed an impropriety. “Where exactly are you staying?”
“I was booked in at Mrs. Pincher’s boarding house,” Temperance began, skipping over the fact she’d been kicked out.
Ivy gasped in realization. “Are you the hussy who stole her dog? That’s Clarence, isn’t it?” She pointed. “Oh, good God.” She grew even more appalled as she was confronted by a blatant impropriety.
Clarence was trying to mount the dalmatian.
“Woodrow,” Ivy said in an aghast whisper.
Woodrow smacked at Clarence’s flank with the end of his leash. Clarence dropped to all fours, but the dogs were sniffing and nuzzling each other, tails wagging with enthusiasm.
“I didn’t steal him,” Temperance insisted. “Mrs. Pincher sold him to Owen for a dime this morning, so I don’t know why she made such a fuss about his going missing. She doesn’t even want him.”
“We have to leave,” Ivy said firmly. “Woodrow, stop him.”
“I’m trying,” he muttered.
He had switched hands with the leash to drag his dog to his other side, but the dalmatian was frisky and receptive. She circled the judge, trying to get closer to Clarence, tying up Woodrow’s legs with the leash and causing him to stagger and swear.
“Control your dog,” Ivy commanded Temperance.
“Owen? Mrs. Greenly wants you to bring Clarence to heel,” Temperance told him, refusing to take any responsibility for the animal.
“Clarence,” Owen said without inflection.
The dog paused at the sound of his name, tail wagging unrestrainedly, and looked at Owen.
“Act like a gentleman. Speaking of misbehaving dogs, how is Elmer?” Owen casually propped his elbow on the window sill. “Will he winter in Springfield again this year?”
Springfield? Temperance barely kept her gasp in her chest. She bounced her gaze between Owen and the Greenlys, trying to work out if she was understanding correctly that these people were the grandparents of Mavis’s newborn son, Freddie.
“Katherine can’t travel. She’s expecting,” Ivy said stiffly, then hissed, “Woodrow,” and smacked at her skirt.
Clarence was very determined. The judge tried to get himself between the dogs while they were equally determined to breed.
“That’s happy news, isn’t it?” Owen spoke with all the placid cheer of a friendly neighbor. “What was his reason for going there last year? Connecting with family?”
Temperance had the sense he was deliberately making conversation to keep them here, the devil. She bit her lips because it was becoming quite comical.
“And business,” Woodrow muttered, still trying to untangle himself from the leash, but every time he got the dalmatian to stand still, Clarence seized his opportunity. “Ivy’s brother is still there, but Elmer was acting for the town company, selling plots?—”
“Oh, Woodrow,” Ivy cried. “I will not have a litter of mutts in my house. We have to take her home right now.”
“Thank you,” Owen said into the window as he took the ticket from the clerk. He snapped his fingers and Clarence came straight to his side to sniff into his hand. Owen took hold of the dog’s scruff. “Tell Elmer I said hello.”
“Of course.” Ivy tucked her hand through her husband’s arm, huffing with shredded dignity. Her glance at Temperance rivaled one of Adelaide’s most unwelcoming expressions.
“Let me know about that railroad investment,” Woodrow reiterated.
As the couple walked away, Temperance looked to Owen in disbelief.
They both sputtered into laughter.